Today, we finish our discussion on Escalation Contracts and the “stack” of Hitman.
Last time, I talked about how Escalations help Hitman players improve their improvisational skills and ability to adapt to new conditions on old missions.
Each level of an escalation adds a new condition, which could be anything from a new target to a level change, or even something as simple as forcing players to hide the bodies. No matter what this condition is though, it must build on top of the old map and the old objectives.
In a way, this is exactly what an Elusive Target is, just without the hard time limit and inability to retry after objectives start getting completed. Elusive Targets always take place on maps that have already been introduced in the story missions, like everything else. However, they are adding new NPCs and objectives, with their own routines, and asking players to either kill them or work around them.
For the player who does many of these Escalations, this is not much of a step up to what they’re already used to. In fact, many of the Escalation are quite challenging in their own rights.
Next time, we get back to the story with the fifth episode: Colorado.
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